


Nothin' like a home-cooked dinner

by TuliaNayeli



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Childhood Memories, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, they swear in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-08 00:23:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10373463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TuliaNayeli/pseuds/TuliaNayeli
Summary: Steve is prepared for an evening of persuading Bucky to eat and sleep. To maybe hold him through the night.But the moment he steps onto their floor, he feels as if he’s the one that needs to be held. Because the apartment smells amazing. The rich, slightly sweet smell of Winifred’s stew is waving through the air.And Steve instantly feels like a little kid. He feels as if he’s ten years old and standing in Mrs. Barnes’ kitchen watching her putter around making his favourite meal to celebrate him surviving another winter.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo I had a writers block. A massive, no good, terrible writers block. But I finally wrote something again! Hope you enjoy it!

When Steve is standing in Stark’s elevator after a long, excruciating mission debrief with Fury, all he wants to do is curl up in his bed and sleep for twenty hours straight. But after a five day mission, it is most likely that he will have to deal with one thing or another that Bucky encountered while Steve was gone.

Bucky is getting better, but it’s a long and frustrating process. The last two times Steve came back after a mission, Bucky had hardly slept, forgot to eat and had just been all around miserable. His memories have been slowly returning, but there is no predicting when he’ll get happy pre-war memories and when he’ll be remembered of a murder he committed.

Steve hates it. He hates how for every memory that brings some light back into Bucky’s eyes, there seem to be two to dim that light. He hates how he can’t always be there for Bucky and above all he hates how even if he is there, there is really nothing he can do.

Although, to be fair, every day he feels like he can do a bit more for his best friend. Because it seems as if Bucky is more and more comfortable around Steve. Around the others, not so much. So now whenever Bucky has a nightmare or panic attack, Steve can simply ask if it’s alright to hug him as close as possible and then do just that.

Steve is prepared for an evening of persuading Bucky to eat and sleep. To maybe hold him through the night.

But the moment he steps onto their floor, he feels as if he’s the one that needs to be held. Because the apartment smells amazing. The rich, slightly sweet smell of Winifred’s stew is waving through the air.

And Steve instantly feels like a little kid. He feels as if he’s ten years old and standing in Mrs. Barnes’ kitchen watching her putter around making his favourite meal to celebrate him surviving another winter.

He chokes up and slowly walks toward their kitchen. As he stands in the threshold, he feels as if he can hardly breathe.

Bucky looks so relaxed. So healthy and at ease. He’s _cooking_ for fucks sake.

Without looking back, Bucky calls out, “You just gonna stand there or you gonna set the table and be useful?”.

Steve can hear the smirk in his voice. Bucky’s trademark smirk. The one that used to be the first and the last thing he saw each day. The one that he hasn’t seen for so long.

He can’t help it. After the exhausting past few days, this is just too much. Seeing Bucky, cooking his moms recipe, looking so comfortable in their kitchen, joking around. It’s too much.

Steve literally collapses on the floor. Before he can be embarrassed about that, Bucky is at his side.

Hands waving frantically around, but not touching him, never touching anyone without consent because those hands have taken too much already ( _it wasn’t you Buck! But it were my hands_ ).

“Shit! Stevie, you alright?”

Steve gasps for air, “Yeah…I just-”

“I’m sorry. Shouldn’t I have made it? It’s just, I was so fucking happy I remembered your favourite recipe.”

“No no no, don’t ever apologize for remembering. I’m not sad. I’m just…overwhelmed”

Steve opens his arms. He just really needs to hold Bucky for a while.

Bucky, still not totally convinced, complies after a second or ten.

“You sure it’s okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah I think it is.”

When Steve finally feels as if his heart will remain in his body, _where it fucking belongs,_ he starts to untangle them a little bit.

The soft, shushing noise Bucky makes is the same he used to make when he didn’t want to get up and go to work just yet. It’s so cute, Steve can’t help but duck down and kiss Bucky’s forehead.

Bucky stiffens.

“Did you just kiss my forehead?”

Fuck. Fuck. Shit, apparently Bucky isn’t as comfortable as he thought he was. Oh god how is he going-

“I didn’t survive seventy years with Hydra for a kiss on my _forehead._ You gonna kiss me, kiss me good."

Steve doesn’t think a sentence has ever thrown him off this much in his entire life.

It’s true that he used to joke that Bucky’s personality was like 80% sass, so it was kinda logical that his sass was the first thing to return. A lot of little sarcastic remarks have slipped out over the past few months. Often without even realizing it, but Bucky became more and more like the sarcastic shit he used to be. He and Steve together used to drive everybody crazy with their sassy remarks.

But still. This one is really unexpected.

“You what?” he splutters.

Bucky hesitantly looks up. I said, “Kiss me. Unless you don’t want to?”

“If you’re sure.”

Bucky nods almost imperceptibly and Steve instantly swoops down.

He didn’t think he’d ever get to do this after he got out of the ice ever again.

A few years down the line, Clint tells Steve he may kiss the groom. And if nobody gets why he kisses his forehead first, that’s okay. This is their day after all.

**Author's Note:**

> And of course Bucky turned the heat down so the stew wouldn't burn. Let me know what you think!


End file.
